Freedom Bookshop: The cleanup

This shows the extensive damage caused by the firebombing of Freedom Bookshop but it also shows the solidarity response. On Saturday 3rd February , the day after the attack, more than 60 comrades went to the shop to help with the clean-up.

Bookshop manager and member of the Freedom collective, Andy Meinke said ‘there were about 8,000 books on the shelves and there is now tens of thousands of pounds of damage. But we will rebuild. We’ve been inundated with offers of support from fellow publishers and other radical bookshops. Many people have sent donations and as you can see here today many are coming to help us clean up the shop.’

The Freedom Press was founded in 1886 as a much needed outlet for anarchist thinkers at the time. Today it says it continues with that tradition – promoting and supporting current social and political struggles. It stocks thousands of books, newspapers, pamphlets and CDs.

A similar attack in 1993 was at the hands of the far-right. And suspicions here are that this time there are similar culprits. Organizations like the Freedom Press come under pressure – and surveillance – from many quarters in Britain.

A Metropolitan police spokesman said: ‘Inquiries into the circumstances of the fire are under way but at this early stage it is being treated as suspicious.’ No arrests have been made yet.

The shop will be open again by Monday.

3 February 2013

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